


kissing in the blue dark (this is my idea of fun)

by redretroconverse



Category: Dare Me (TV 2019), Dare Me - Megan Abbott
Genre: Angst, Biting, Drama, F/F, Friends With Benefits, Jealousy, Pre-Canon, Unrequited Crush, lots of biting lots of angst, our bi babies are bad with feelings, well we know it's not unrequited but Addy doesn't
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:27:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23879914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redretroconverse/pseuds/redretroconverse
Summary: It's a game for Beth. What isn't, really, Addy wonders sometimes.or:They fuck and it's more simple and complicated than Addy could've ever dreamed.
Relationships: Beth Cassidy/Addy Hanlon
Comments: 8
Kudos: 143





	kissing in the blue dark (this is my idea of fun)

When they first start fucking, it’s such a cliche Addy doesn’t really think it counts.

“It’s just practice,” Beth proclaims, sucking Addy off her fingers. The wet _pop_ of it in Addy’s room reminds her of a gun going off and god, this is just another thing they’ll use to hurt each other.

Addy doesn’t respond, just turns over and waits for Beth’s hands to find her hips. They fall asleep like that, Beth’s fingers still slick on her skin.

...

It’s a game for Beth. _What isn’t, really,_ Addy wonders sometimes. She leaves marks on Addy’s thighs and neck, bites and laves till Addy is forced to concede defeat, screaming silently against her pillow as she comes, again and again and again.

“Ooh, Hanlon.” One of the girls will pat the mark on her thigh her cheer shorts don’t quite cover. “Someone looking to take Beth’s place?”

Beth’s smile is too wide, too knowing and Addy hates her and loves her just a little bit more.

...

The funny thing is, it’s never quite the same with anyone else.

Some guy with his fingers between her thighs, and yeah, it’s good, fuck, great even, but in the back of her mind, all she can think about is Beth, last night, her back pressed up against Addy’s chest, god, she can almost hear Beth screaming her name -

“Hanlon, this prick bothering you?”

_Beth_.

The guy she’s with pulls back, and Addy is left wanting.

“Get out of here.” What is it about Beth, that no one ever argues with her?

She thinks about the squad, the way she has to tell them twice, the way Beth only has to click her heels and admits that she’s a little jealous.

Beth sidles up to her, in the seedy men’s room of some backwater bar and drops to her knees.

“Anything I can help you with?” She says, fluttering her lashes, and -

_Fuck_.

...

Beth is too much sometimes.

Sometimes, like now, forcing her to watch as she kisses this fool with his backwards baseball cap, forcing her to watch as she climbs into his lap, her legs spread expertly wide.

It’s a game, like everything else, but Addy isn’t in the mood.

She steps outside, bums a smoke off a guy with eyes like a snake. She isn’t in the mood for him either and brushes him off when he smooths a hand over her ass.

She waits.

Beth stumbles out of the bar twenty minutes later, her eyes bright.

“Let’s go.” Addy says, crushing her cigg underneath her shoe.

“Someone’s in a mood.” Beth drawls and Addy slams the car door.

Beth flinches.

“Don’t.”

“Lighten up, Hanlon.” Beth looks away, skittish and Addy is tempted, so tempted to leave her there, shimmering half-heartedly in gas station lighting.

“Get in the car.”

Beth, of course, heads in the opposite direction. Addy follows her.

It isn’t until they reach the back of the parking lot that she realises her mistake.

There’s no one around. It’s just them, in the dead of the night.

Beth turns to her, and her eyes glitter.

“On your knees, Hanlon.”

Addy scoffs. Beth backs her up against an ugly beat-up Hummer.

“The fuck did I say, Hanlon?”

“You may be top girl in practice, Cassidy, but out here, I don’t have to listen to you.”

She turns away. She can still taste the menthol in the back of her throat.

“You want to, though.”

Addy swallows.

Beth’s hand on her hip is tentative, almost unsure as she spins Addy back around to face her.

“You want to make me forget his name.” Addy closes her eyes, something tight in her throat as she falls to her knees.

She traces her fingers over the fresh bruise on Beth’s knee and above her, Beth sighs her name.

_This isn’t enough,_ Addy thinks.

...

Addy thinks about college, about this _fucking_ town, about the way her door squeaks when it closes, about the way the floor groans under her feet.

What she wouldn’t give for a house that didn’t protest her very existence inside of it. For smooth wooden floors with no splinters, for silk sheets and view money shouldn't be able to buy. Things she can't get with a degree from City _fucking_ Tech. 

Beth sits on her back as Addy googles her escape plan.

“So,” she says, hands combing through the tangles of Addy’s hair. “where are we going?”

Addy smiles, and doesn’t say, _you’re not coming._

…

They don’t talk about the kiss, the one that was too soft, too good, too tender.

_I love you,_ Addy wants to say, but doesn’t because the words are too bitter, too fragile.

_I love you_ , Beth says as she walks out the Hanlon’s front door, blowing Addy a kiss over her shoulder. Her eyes are on her phone; she smiles at someone else.

The hamsa Beth gave her that night coils itself around her wrist like a snake, like Beth’s voice in her ear on Sunday mornings; _want a bite, Hanlon? I know I do._

Addy practices her tumbling till her knees shake, till her eyes sting, till she can’t remember her own name, let alone -

_Beth._

_…_

It’s summer camp and Addy would usually enjoy this. Stale cider and her girls wild on no sleep and secrets passed between bunks but sharing a room with Beth is different now. Like going home to a lover, the minute their room door slams shut.

Addy doesn’t say a word as Beth, fresh from the shower, closes the door behind her.

She can smell her from here. Beth smells like the woods. Always has.

She wants to scream, looking at Beth. This light-as-feather girl with trouble on her tongue. Regina George on a line of some tweak shit. Every line of her is smooth and clean and straight and she thinks of Beth in practice that day, her foot high over her head as she struggles with her bow and arrow.

Addy thinks about what it would be like to pull her taut, snap the string.

“You’re staring, Hanlon.” Beth smirks, dragging a towel through her hair.

“Am I not allowed?” Addy asks, though the words feel cheap. Overused.

“Why look when you can touch?” Beth says and Addy almost laughs.

These lines, _fuck._ Like re-runs of a bad sitcom on Friday night TV. No one watches. No one’s home.

Addy’s hand is on the doorknob before she even thinks about it and the lock clicks.

She could just walk out.

“Addy?”

There are so many things she wants to say but her tongue feels like an anchor in her mouth, weighed down by every unspoken grievance. It’s more than just jealousy; it’s resentment. It pulls and pulls and pulls.

“I’m gonna room with Riri tonight.” She says instead, and grabs her bag. She hadn’t unpacked yet, except for a change of clothes, and she’s grateful. “I’ll get Cori to switch.”

“No.”

“No?”

“No.” Beth is in her face, pressing a hand against the door as if to reassure herself that Addy hasn’t opened it. Hasn’t walked out on her, like every other goddamn person in her life. Addy feels the guilt curdle in her gut even as she straightens her back to look Beth in the eye.

“This isn’t how we work, Hanlon.” There is something like desperation in Beth’s voice, and it riles something in Addy. _Good,_ she thinks, _good._

“Maybe it should be.” Addy forces herself to shrug. Beth doesn’t like hysterics, Beth likes games, and Addy learned to play a long time ago.

“What’s this about?” Beth’s hands curl at her sides, as if she’s prepping for a fight. “We have a problem?”

“We’re gonna have one in a minute, if you don’t step aside.”

Beth laughs, leaning against the door.

“You don’t get to walk out, Addy.” She licks her lips, almost nervous. “Not you.” She says, and there’s a whine in her voice that Addy’s never heard.

“I just need some space, Cassidy.” Addy forces herself to laugh too. _Nothing’s breaking,_ she tries to tell herself, _this is just a wall._ “You haven’t given me a second to breathe since…”

_Since you fucked me in my shower last April._

“So that’s what this is about? The sex?” Beth smirks and Addy tries to smooth the furrow in her brow before Beth can catch it. They never call it sex. They never call it anything at all. “Don’t be a child, Hanlon. It’s just practice.”

The bow snaps.

“For what, Beth?” She pushes, gets in Beth’s face. “For the next creep who smells like cheap beer and Camel Lights?” She sneers and her voice is too loud, and these walls are paper thin and she can’t bring herself to fucking care. _Practice,_ she thinks. _All we are is practice._ “Sorry, I don’t think I have the right equipment.”

Beth’s face is tight, too tight.

Addy thinks about how this is supposed to be. She thinks about her neighbours, Mrs and Mrs. Ellen and how they look at each other, tender and kind and this is _nothing_ like that, she wants to hurt Beth, she wants to bury herself in the way Beth smells and fuck her into the mattress, she wants -

She wants.

Beth stares at the floor. Beth won’t look her in the eye. Beth, who probably dreams of a house with a white picket fence and big windows, with a cardboard cut-out husband and an angelic little baby girl to replace the family she lost. Beth, who doesn’t dream about Addy, who doesn’t wake up with Addy’s name on her lips, who doesn’t have Addy’s name carved into her heart.

She deflates, dropping her bag on the floor. Beth flinches at the sound.

“Sorry,” Addy says, voice rough even to her own ears. “PMS.”

Beth doesn’t say anything, just switches off the lights and crawls into bed next to her.

“You’re not just practice.” Beth says, but the words feel like a consolation prize. An empty gesture meant to keep her on the hook. Addy has been bait for months; the way the hook pierces through her lip and holds her in place never gets old. Her heart flutters. She wishes it didn’t. She closes her eyes and feels Beth’s grip tighten on her hips. “Hanlon…”

“You were never going to choose me, were you?”

The words bubble out before Addy has a chance to catch them.

Beth’s grip is bruising.

Beth doesn’t answer; she can’t, Addy knows. Beth is good at riddles, good at games - Beth is her father’s daughter. She can fuck with everything but the truth.

Beth’s teeth sink into the back of her neck so suddenly Addy almost screams; she doesn’t, though. Beth’s hands find hers in the dark. Her tongue smooths over the spot even as her teeth dig in again. Again and again until the sensation is so constant Addy’s convinced it was always there. Then, without warning, it’s gone and Addy shivers as cold air touches the wet, bloody skin.

“I hope it scars.” Beth whispers.

Addy digs her fingers into Beth’s forearm, and enjoys her hiss of pain.

_I hope so too._


End file.
